Since I made these tracks I have some thoughts I ought to share.
I've said this on numerous occasions and I'm going to bring it up again because there has to be an acceptable explanation as to why this sound is so close to those originals.
In 1958 when Cliff recorded 'Move It' there were no Shadows in existence and session men played the instruments on this track.
We know who they were as it's well documented and the guitarist Ernie Shear used his Hofner President through a Fender amplifier, though which one is a subject for debate, but the DeLuxe Reverb or Tremolux have been mooted as the type. There was no Meazzi echo box on the track and it was the Abbey Road Reverb and the mixing desk (Neve) that made this magical guitar sound that we all cherish.
What I'm saying is that 'Move It' represents the sound of the early Shadows before they actually formed and the common denominator here is the Abbey Road studio and it's equipment. The Shadows sound is well known to be achieved using a Fender Stratocaster through a Vox amplifier, with a few different Meazzi echo boxes over time.
Now fast forward to yesterday when I made my first ever recording with my Meazzi (I'm told that it's a 1960 transistor echomatic) but I also used a Fender DeLuxe Reverb amplifier, albeit differently by using the state of the art DI socket to get it to the recorder, as well as the JHS Colourbox V2, which represents a channel strip on the Abbey Road, Neve mixing desk.
I didn't mess around trying to copy those guitar tones from the records, I used what I believed was a generic sound that I was happy with and played all three tunes in a single take on the same settings except for removing one head on the Meazzi for 'Midnight'. The Fender amp had the treble & bass controls set to *1, as it is known that you get a good Vox tone by doing that. So what I'm putting forward is, although my equipment was mostly modern, except the Meazzi, the combination of it still produced that magic and I was very surprised just how authentic it sounded after years of trying to get it with other gear but never quite right.
The JHS Colourbox is not a cheap piece of kit and has had exceptional reviews in the technical music circles for replicating the Abbey Road desk, it's claimed that The Beatles used to DI their guitars and this box can copy the sound perfectly, from crisp clean sounds to the fuzziest of heavy tones. I've tried it and it does.
The Fender Tone Master Deluxe Reverb isn't cheap either and reviews tell us that it nails the original 'tube' sounds that this amp has been known for over decades.
We already know about the Meazzi and how it can bring magic to a Stratocaster, though I have heard many Meazzis sound bad, simply because they are easy to push over the top into distortion, which is one of the things that made me resist them. It's well documented on this site that I believed the Meazzi wasn't the magic bullet simply because of the 'Move It' evidence.
Since I made it known that I was interested in buying the Echomatic, I've had no end of good advice from experienced people about being aware of overloading the signal as these distort fairly easily and the first day I had it I heard it a lot. One has to resist pushing the input levels in order to get that clean sound, but with just enough 'grit' to give it character and appear to remain clean.
In conclusion I now actually believe that used carefully and avoiding that 'overload', the Meazzi is an important ingredient to THAT SOUND and as I have finally seen it for myself I'm a happy person.
